Close to 90 kids lined up to pack food for Feed My Starving Children with Key Club Oct. 23 in hopes of helping kids around the world.

Using donations that the Feed My Starving Children organization receives, soy, rice, vitamins, and dried vegetables are packed into bags by volunteers. Then the food is distributed to one of the countries partnered with them.

The Feed My Starving Children official website says, “Every year, millions of children die from preventable causes such as pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and undernutrition. Hunger is still causing nearly half of deaths in children under 5 years old. From this data, we estimate at least 6,200 children die each day from causes related to undernutrition.”

All of these diseases can easily be prevented by the people in our community taking a couple hours out of their days to help.

“Feed My Starving Children is a nonprofit organization that helps to transport food to other countries where kids need it,” said Estrella Martinez, a volunteer in Key Club. 

The organization is partnered with more than 70 different countries around the world. There are 8 permindent food-packing sites that are located in Arizona, Illinois, Minnesota, and Texas. The food is sent to orphanages, schools, clinics, refugee camps and nutrition programs from the sites, and then distributed to kids that need it. 

“Each bag that gets packed serves six meals. Each box that gets packed serves 216 meals. My goal is to do at least 240 boxes. This would be 51,840 meals, which would feed about 145 kids for a year,” said Emma Theel, Upper Campus math teacher and Key Club advisor. 

With everyone working their hardest, 105 boxes were packed. Theel’s goal wasn’t reached, but there are more benefits than just reaching a number.

“I went to Feed My Starving Children to help the children across the world, because I know that I have a lot and I know that if I can give something to somebody else it makes me feel good inside,” said Megan Crow, a Key Club volunteer.

Because of this simple act, 62 kids are going to have the nutrients they need to be happy and healthy for the next year.